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Blair
Blair was the Senior Biologist of the U.S. Outpost 31. He is portrayed by Wilford Brimley. History During the winter of 1982, the Norwegians were chasing an Alaskan Malamute around the outpost, the pilot was killed when he accidentally dropped a grenade and the passenger was killed by Garry thinking that he was hostile, the crew adopted the dog. R.J. MacReady and Copper found evidence that the Norwegians had dug something out of the ice, the pair return to the station with the partially-burned remains of a hideous creature which bears some human features. An autopsy of the cadaver by Blair is inconclusive, save to find that the creature had what appeared to be a normal set of human internal organs. During the night, he was woken up by the fire alarm that was turned on by MacReady, he saw an unknown creature assimilating the dogs, MacReady ordered Childs to bring the flamethrower and ordered him to incinerate it. A subsequent autopsy by Blair reveals that the stray dog was an alien capable of absorbing and perfectly imitating other life-forms. Realizing the implications of this, Blair quickly becomes withdrawn and suspicious of the others. Discovering that all life on Earth would be assimilated in just over three years if the creature were to reach another continent, Blair suffers a total mental breakdown, he began destroying the helicopters, tractor and radio with an axe, and killing the remaining sled dogs, containing further contamination. The team overpowers him and locks him in the tool shed. MacReady and the others later check on Blair, who is having canned food for dinner and seems to prepare to hang himself with a noose, he stated that he is fine now and wanted to go back in the outpost, not taking any chances, MacReady still left Blair locked in the shed. Blair was eventually assimilated by the Thing and secretly constructs a small UFO underneath the shed where it plans to sleep through the winter until the rescue team arrives. The surviving crew set out to the tool shed in order to administer the test to Blair, only to find that he has escaped by tunneling his way underground. After the burning of the Palmer-Thing, the team was too late to realize that the thing got to Blair first *(somehow). Realizing that the creature now wants to freeze again so a future rescue team will find it, the remaining crew acknowledge that they will not survive and set about destroying the facility in hopes of killing the creature. While setting explosives in the underground generator room, the Blair-Thing kills Garry and forcing Nauls to commit suicide, it then mutates into a large creature. It emerges from the floor and then faced MacReady, however MacReady throws a stick of dynamite at it, destroying both the outpost and the creature in the process. Trivia There has been a debate among fans whether or not that Blair's computer program's projection on the Thing is actually accurate since it certainly isn't accurate in the sense that a biologist would not be working on computer animations as part of his investigations, especially under the pressing circumstances like we see in the film. This scene is obviously meant to be an aid to the audience to understand the Thing's life-cycle, not a realistic portrayal of a biologist's studies. And how well does the simulation work? Unfortunately, it leads to more questions than answers. We see dog cells being devoured, one by one, by a single Thing cell and this seems to contradict what we've already seen of the Thing's behavior. Never does the simulation show that the Thing cells divide to replace canine cells, which is what would make more sense. So, the animation should be taken with a grain of salt. On the DVD commentary track, Carpenter comments that they "didn't get it quite right" regarding the Thing's life cycle but that "it doesn't matter." From this it may be concluded that the goal with the computer sequence was not truly accomplished, so it must therefore be regarded with skepticism. It's clear that the Blair computer simulation was meant to replace a similar scene in the script and novel. Alan Dean Foster's description of the Thing's cells seems to be better: :Fuchs was preparing new slides, which Blair studied under the microscope. Two cells were visible through the eyepiece. They were active, neither quiescent nor dead. One looked quite normal. Its companion looked anything but. :At the moment the two were joined together by a thin stream of protoplasm. Material from the larger cell, which was long and thin, flowed into the smaller, spherical cell. As it did so the smaller cell swelled visibly, until the cell wall fractured in three places. Immediately the smaller cell assumed a flattened shape like the other and three new streams of material began to flow outward from its interior. Neither cell appeared to have lost any mass. :Blair pulled away from the eyepiece and frowned as he checked his watch. It was running in stopwatch mode. He turned it off. The resulting readout was very puzzling. Assimilation The exact point when Blair was assimilated by The Thing is left deliberately unclear, and has been source of open-ended discussion among fans. *Scenario 1 - It is possible that Blair was assimilated by the Dog-Thing the first night it was in the base. Therefore, Blair was already an imitation when he sabotaged the vehicles, killed the other dogs, and destroyed the radio. *Scenario 2 - Blair was infected at some point by Norris or Palmer, when he was locked in the tool shed. This probably would have occurred during the hour-long blackout when a fuse was blown (probably by the Norris-Thing) and Fuchs died. Even in this case, it isn't clear if Blair is human or not in the scene when MacReady asks if he has seen Fuchs, and he asks to be let out. Many of the hard-core fans have pointed out over the years (much to Carpenter's rebuttal) that as soon as Blair's lips touched the tip of the eraser that made contact with the kennel-thing, during his report the cells had already begun assimilating and slowly speading throughout him. Even though others claim it wasn't sufficient enough to cause takeover. However, if this were the case, he (much like Norris may have, when refusing leadership) felt himself being assimilated by The Thing and what was left of his humanity went berzerk. Even imitating his rant (from the deleted scene) of no one getting off of Antarctica alive when he ambushed Garry. However, it no longer needed his eyeglasses and obviously constructed a mock-up UFO. While Fuchs does speculate that even a few cells can infect someone, it is also emphasized that assimilation is a violent and painful process requiring prolonged and close physical contact. If The Thing could infect with only a few cells, the Norris and Palmer Things would have infected Garry, Doc, and Clark when they tied them up, or even other characters through a seemingly innocuous tap on the skin. Gallery File:Screenshot23396.jpg| File:Screenshot18254.jpg| File:Screenshot28190.jpg| File:Screenshot29466.jpg| Category:Characters Category:1982 characters Category:Villians Category:Deceased characters